Alumni-Led 847 Hoops Provides Free Camps To Chicago Area Youth

Jun 24, 2013

How much do you think a week-long boys basketball summer camp in
the Chicago area costs? Two hundred dollars? Three hundred dollars?
Four hundred dollars? If you guessed in that range, you are right,
which is the reason why what a group of Claremont McKenna College
alumni are doing is so remarkable.

In the summer of 2011, Aron Khurana ’09 co-founded a free,
week-long basketball camp called 847 Hoops for at-risk seventh and
eighth grade boys in Waukegan, Ill., just north of Chicago. Fellow
CMC alumni Jordan Nottke ’10, Andy Doyle ’09 and Tejas
Gala ’09 have also assisted with the camp. Both Nottke and
Doyle were members of the Stag football team while Gala and Khurana
played basketball for the Stags.

847 Hoops serves a larger purpose than just basketball. Not only
does the camp provide youth in lower income areas an exceptional
level of coaching at no cost, the campers also get dinner at the
end of each day and a visit from a variety of motivational speakers
ranging from local professional and college athletes to doctors and
lawyers. For at least a week each summer, anywhere from 50 to 100
campers are off the streets and out of reach of the youth gangs and
violence that plagues the area. The most recent gang-related
shooting in Waukegan happened on April 30 and similar incidents
frequent the local news.

“Chicago is really affected by youth gangs and youth
violence. Sports summer camps and after school activities are a
great way to keep kids off the streets and out of gangs and camps
also help youth with their confidence and positive thinking,”
Khurana said. “We wanted to promote positive values in young
people and also bridge the income gap in terms of basketball skills
and coaching that was provided to the youth in the area.”

The idea to start a free basketball camp for youngsters of all
income brackets came to Khurana when he worked at a firm in New
York City that promoted volunteering. He began to think about how
he could volunteer his time in areas that he was passionate
about.

“Some of the volunteer opportunities (in New York) were
projects that didn’t appeal to me but I did enjoy
volunteering. So, I thought to myself, ‘what could I do that
I would be passionate about, good at, I would enjoy doing, and that
my friends would enjoy doing with me?” Khurana said.
“What brought me back to running a basketball camp were all
the positive things that I have learned in my life on the court,
like discipline. A lot of the motivation I have gotten and a lot of
the positive role models that I have come across have come from
sports, particularly basketball.”

One positive role model for Khurana growing up was his high school
basketball coach, Darren Barndt. When Khurana came up with the idea
to start 847 Hoops, Barndt was the first call he made. Both Khurana
and Barndt believed that there were talented up-and-coming
basketball players in the 847 area code of Waukegan, but many of
those players lacked quality coaching because of the high costs
associated with top-level area camps.

“Kids from lower-income areas were not getting the kind of
coaching and training that some of the other kids were (receiving)
in the fundamentals of the game,” Khurana said.

After some fundraising, the two co-founders, along with a large
group of volunteers, ran their first camp of 50 campers in Waukegan
in the summer of 2011. In 2012, 847 Hoops expanded with a second
site in Humboldt Park, a high-risk area on the West Side of
Chicago. The latter camp was established in part thanks to a chance
encounter between Khurana and CMC alumni Carlos Rivas ’12 at
a CMC alumni event. Rivas runs a youth organization in Humboldt
Park, so he inquired about 847 Hoops. The two decided to add the
Humboldt camp in 2012. With these two camps, the reach of 847 Hoops
ballooned to 108 campers.

The goal in the future, according to Khurana, is for the number
of campers to continue to grow. A possible third site is on the
radar for this summer with the first camp set to start at the end
of July. Khurana is in the process of getting 847 Hoops 501c3
certified as a nationally recognized non-profit organization. As
847 Hoops continues to grow, he is working to create a sustainable
camp model that other cities can follow.

For information on the camp and how to support 847 Hoops, visit
847hoops.com.